I suspect it knows precisely what it’s doing, though, by offering up entirely fictional estimates of how long it will take to finish a load of washing.
Much like home delivery of goods or appointments with handymen, often derided for their lax approach to punctuality — “we’ll get there between 8am and 2pm,” only for them to turn up at 3pm, not ring the doorbell, and leave a note saying you weren’t in — our washing machine is continuously proving its dominance in our household. It is, at least in its own mind, the alpha of this home.
Instructed to do a load of washing following a certain programme — and it doesn’t matter which — it’ll confidently spit out a time indicating how long it’ll take, right down to the minute. 58 minutes if you opt for a short cycle, 1 hour and 51 minutes on a medium cycle, 2 hours and 23 if you’re not in a hurry.
But these predictions are never, ever, right. I’ve tried outsmarting the ridiculously overpriced block of metal and cement by adding 10, 20, 30, 40 minutes to the alarm on my phone that’ll let me know the washing should be done, but these efforts are always without reward. If I add 10 minutes, you better believe it’ll take 16 minutes longer than projected. If I add 20, it’ll be 27.
And that’s the most annoying aspect. It’s always just over a handful of minutes longer than whatever time it initially projected plus my addition. Not so much time that the natural choice is for me to go back up and watch some TV, but too much for me to sit around in the wash room and wait for it to finish.... though I once made the mistake of doing the latter when it said it had 6 minutes to go, and of course the numbers on the screen didn’t indicate minutes. Six measures of time, yes, but not minutes - in minutes, it was more like 11.
They want to put people on Mars, but a washing machine that accurately predicts how long a load will take... That’s true scifi, and a future I will embrace wholeheartedly... before sending my current machine right up to Mars.
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